Water Services Department Overview

The Water Services Department is the department responsible for executing the Harry Gwala District Municipality Water Services Authority (WSA) function. The department is divided into 3 units working together to full fill the mandate of water services provision as per the South African Constitution, Water Services Act (108 of 1997), National Water Act (36 of 1998) as well as the Strategic Framework of the Water Services (2003). The three units are planning and designing, Water Governance & Customer Care as well as Operations and Maintenance unit.

Planning and Design Unit

The Water Services Department through its Planning and design unit has the responsibility to perform all the planning for new projects and ensure that the department has all the planning systems in place. It also has the responsibility to develop the water and sanitation master planning documents of which the Water Services Development Plan (WSDP) is the key document.

The WSDP is the document that acts as an Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for Water and sanitation services. It gives that specific attention to the backlog, water and sanitation service levels water conservation and demand management and all other activities of the water services delivery within the municipality.

Currently the department has engaged the service provider that is working with the water service department staff in reviewing the existing master planning document. This exercise is as assistance to the municipality in prioritizing the areas that need urgent attention in terms of service delivery.

Water Governance and Customer Care Unit

The Water Governance and Customer Care unit is the regulatory arm of the Water Services Department. It has the mandate of ensuring that the municipality is complying with National standards and legislation of the water service delivery. Among the duties that the unit has to perform is to ensure that the water and sanitation customers are well protected and satisfied. The most crucial of the unit is to ensure the development and implementation of the water services policies and by-laws. Over and above this the unit performs awareness’s and educational campaigns where the communities get educated on their rights through the customer care charter, education on policies and by-laws, water conservation tips as well as health & hygiene tips. The unit also has the responsibility to ensure that the Municipality is complying with the National Standards of water quality and educate people of safety measures in case where the water quality is threatened.

Operations and Maintanance Unit

Operations and Maintenance is the biggest unit in the Water Services Department in terms of staff turnover and the complexity of duties performed by the unit. It has its work divided into satellites and those satellites have been strategically placed according to the Local Municipality it serves. Each satellite has an Area Manager responsible for it, and they report to the Director Operations & Maintenance. Most of the water challenges and achievements of the water services function emanates through this unit of the water services department.

The department is currently faced with some challenges of the water provision however it is working hard to improve the situation day by day. The issues of old infrastructure that hinders and interrupt water supply, vandalism and the poor workmanship of the work from the inherited schemes are but the few to mention.

The focus of the unit is to improve the lives of the Harry Gwala District Municipality by supplying the water of the good quality and provide proper systems for sanitation services.

The Following will go under the Operations and Maintenance (O & M) Unit

Water Services Department is currently in a process of improving access to basic water services by improving and refurbishing the water schemes that are less or non-functional within the District. We have engaged the contracted service providers for these refurbishment works. The following are the some of the refurbishments currently happening on our water schemes in each satellite area.